Everybody wins when ex-addicts learn to live again

A great failing of current strategies to solve the problem of drug addiction in B.C. is the near-absence of any long-term programs catering to the needs of patients in recovery.

It is doubly disappointing then, that when a private initiative is put forward offering such a program, it should encounter resistance from within the community.

There is a danger of this happening in Surrey, where, as Kent Spencer reported in The Province yesterday, former business tycoon John Volken is proposing to build a $20-million “campus” in the Newton area designed to teach life and job skills to recovering addicts.

Volken, 66, who sold his United Furniture Warehouse chain three years ago, has since invested more than $100 million in pursuing his grand scheme of social philanthropy.